Sawmill Complex (Wyman 2)

200768,250 acresMontana

The Sawmill Complex (Wyman 2) burned 68,250 acres, about 107 square miles, across 2 counties. It began on July 13, 2007.

Watch how it happened

Sawmill Complex (Wyman 2) · 2007

How it happened

Watch it burn in the order satellites saw it, coloured by how severely each place burned.

About this replay

Date (UTC)—Historical replay

Burned so far—acres

High severity—of the area so far

Detections1,112satellite fire pixels

Fire milestones

Burn severityHigh, Moderate, Low, Unburned to low, Increased greenness

Burning nowAreas reached in the last half day of satellite passes

Washington, D.C., to scale61 square miles of land, drawn at the fire’s scale

Timing: NASA FIRMS satellite fire detections (1,112 MODIS) inside the final perimeter; each place takes the time of its nearest detection, so the order is satellite-observed but interpolated between passes, roughly every 12 hours. Severity: Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (USGS, U.S. Forest Service), mapped from Landsat after the fire.

How severely it burned

Burn severity inside the final perimeter, classified from Landsat images taken before and after the fire.

Map of burn severity across the Sawmill Complex (Wyman 2)

Burn severity by class
Severity	Share	Acres
Highmost vegetation consumed, soils altered	29%	19,878
Moderatemixed: many trees killed, some survive	20%	13,394
Lowsurface fire, most trees survive	28%	19,053
Unburned to lowislands inside the perimeter, little change	23%	15,621
Increased greennessvegetation greener after the fire than before	0.4%	303

29% of the area inside the perimeter burned at high severity, about 19,878 acres; 49% burned at moderate or high severity.

Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (U.S. Geological Survey and USDA Forest Service). Classes come from the change in a Landsat burn index (dNBR) between images before and after the fire; acres are each class’s share of the fire’s mapped area.

Where it burned

Acres inside each county, measured from the satellite-mapped perimeter.

Acres burned by county

Granite County	MT	66,851
Ravalli County	MT	1,383

Other large fires in Montana in 2007

Chippy Creek Fire95,636 acres
Fool Creek Fire53,902 acres
Ahorn Fire45,626 acres
Skyland Fire41,230 acres
Bridge Fire36,729 acres
Jocko Lakes Fire35,790 acres
Brush Creek Fire30,161 acres
Rombo Mountain Fire28,224 acres

Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (USGS and U.S. Forest Service). Type recorded: Wildfire.